by Max Walker
But then again, did I even believe that?
I walked up the stairs, toward the apartment, where a flow of police was going in and out of.
“Detective Hudson.”
It was Officer Melissa Tate standing at the top of the stairs. She was a short, tight-lipped woman who meant business at all hours of the day, her dark hair up in a perfect bun. She smiled, hidden crinkles revealing themselves at the corners of her forest-green eyes. Officer Tate was one of the good ones. Hell, I’d go as far to say that she was one of the great ones. I worked with her before on a few different cases, and we managed to lock up three serial rapists and two big-time drug dealers in a matter of weeks.
She was one of the few people who’d been able to crack through me. Not all the way, but far enough to see a piece of the real me.
“Hey, Melissa.”
“It’s way past your bedtime. What are you doing up, hon?”
I arched my brow. “You know I don’t have a bedtime.”
“Mhmm. I’ve heard the stories.”
“What happened here?” I could see the living room behind her. Nothing seemed out of place from the quick look.
“Looks pretty cut-and-dry. We found the victim, stabbed to death inside his bedroom. The suspect was found with quite a lot of blood on her hands. The murder weapon was one of her kitchen knives, which seems to be missing now.”
“Anyone see anything?”
“Someone four apartments down said he saw the victim, Jesse, outside in the parking lot, and he appeared to be kissing a thin woman with long brown hair. He said it was quick, and if he had blinked he might have missed it. The two then moved so they were out of sight, most likely coming up to the apartment themselves. This happened four hours ago.”
I sucked my teeth. Could Hazel and Jesse have been in a secret relationship gone terribly wrong? From my initial searching, I hadn’t seen any suggestions that Jesse was seeing someone. And why would the kiss be kept so short if it weren’t a relationship that needed to be kept quiet?
“Can I see the crime scene?”
Melissa nodded and grabbed me a pair of sanitized blue slip-ons to put over my shoes. “There’s a lot of blood in there.”
I walked in, not immediately seeing the blood, but smelling it first. The drying blood had an acidic stench that twisted my stomach into knots, even from a room away. There were multiple crime scene investigators working in the apartment, taking photos and documenting everything they could find. I made sure to stay out of their way as I walked through the living room, toward the hallway and to Jesse’s room. I walked past Sam’s bedroom, the door open as someone dusted his nightstand for fingerprints.
Jesse’s bedroom was a bloody mess, the place looking like it had been trashed by a team of ten people. There were blood splatters on the wall and across the smashed mirror, along with blood all over the bed, soaking into the white sheets. Jesse’s body had already been taken, so I would need to examine him at some other point, but just from the scene alone, I knew I should be expecting a body that looked like a pincushion. He must have been stabbed at least ten times. There were even shreds in the bedsheets, where the stabs must have missed Jesse and cut through the sheets, down to the mattress. All around the floor were see-through bags of white and blue powders, adding another wrench in the bloody gears of this case.
“The lab has to test it, but we think it’s cocaine and ketamine,” Melissa said behind me. “Think the drugs had a part to play in this?”
“A robbery gone wrong? I don’t think so… this seems more personal. A robbery would have been a shot to the head, and they would have run off with all of this. No, this was someone who had feelings for Jesse. Twisted ones. Dark ones.”
“And what do you think about that?”
Melissa pointed to above the bed. At first I thought it was just more blood splatter, but then it dawned on me. I wasn’t looking at a spray of blood; I was looking at a symbol, drawn with the blood.
Above the bed, the blood still dripping, there was an ellipse, about half the width of the headboard and seemingly placed directly above the center of the bed, blood having dried as it dripped down the crusted white walls.
“Could it be a signature?” Melissa asked, moving aside as another detective walked out with one of the bags of cocaine. “You don’t think this is the start of something, right?”
“No,” I said, although I wasn’t entirely sure of my own answer. “It looks more like a message than a signature.”
“A message saying what?”
We both looked at the circle of blood, neither of us coming up with any answers.
I did know one thing, though: I was going to get to the bottom of this, one way or another.
11
Sam Clark
I slept for a grand total of two hours. I woke up, half sitting and half lying down on my parents’ couch inside their tiny one-bedroom apartment, their three cats staring expectantly at me, as if I had a bag of food hiding behind my sore back. I wiped the drool from my mouth and the sleep from my eyes, and for a flicker of a second, I dumbly assumed that all of yesterday had to have been some kind of crazy dream. There was no way I had gotten into a fistfight, went on a date, and got home from said date to find my best friend being framed for murder.
There was no way, right?
Right… No. That all actually happened.
I’ve got to talk to Hazel.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine the night she’d been put through. I grabbed my phone off the scuffed white coffee table and sat up on the couch. A slant of morning sunlight filtered through the center of the closed blinds, their heavy gray fabric blocking the rest of the light.
First, I called the Miami Police Department, who were as helpful as me calling the weatherman. They wouldn’t give me any information except for what jail Hazel had been taken to. That sent me down a rabbit hole of “hold, please” and “one minute” while I was transferred around like a hot potato. I couldn’t understand why it was so difficult for someone to get ahold of Hazel, or at least tell me exactly where and when I could see her.
Finally, someone answered me with useful information. “Hazel is being held in the FDC of Miami. The Federal Detention Center,” she clarified.
“Wait, she’s not at the Women’s Detention Center?”
The lady on the other end of her phone clicked her tongue. “Says here the person you’re looking for is at FDC. Birth name is Paul Velasquez, correct?”
Oh no. No, no, no.
My stomach twisted itself into a knot. Hazel had been taken to a male facility, even though she was a transwoman. She didn’t belong in there. The harassment she must have been put through, or worse… “When’s the soonest I can see her?” I was already putting on my sneakers and tying the laces.
“You can visit him—”
“Her,” I said pointedly.
“You can visit before two today.”
“Bail. How much is her bail?”
“Bail is set at…”
I could hear her clicking the mouse. Whatever it was, I knew then and there that I had to pay it. Hazel didn’t have rich family; she wouldn’t have anyone to go to besides me. I’d pay it, however many hundreds it cost me.
“Hazel’s bail is set at $25,000.”
I stuttered before I spat out, “$25,000? Are you freaking kidding?”
A powerful stab of sadness hit me right in the chest. That was way more than I was assuming to pay. It didn’t matter how much bodily fluids I donated, I wasn’t coming up with that kind of money.
Maybe if I sell my car. And I can try to sell… no, that won’t be enough. Bail bondsman. I can go to one of those. Like a loan, I’ll just pay it off. Maybe once she’s found innocent, it’ll get thrown away. Is that how it happens? Can tha—
“Hello? Sir? Do you need anything else?”
“No. No, thank you.” I hung up, my thoughts still racing in a thousand different directions. Both my parents, who had been quite scared when I
woke them up in the middle of the night, were still knocked out, my dad’s snores sounding like loud foghorns from behind their closed bedroom door. I wrote up a quick note on a yellow sticky-note pile they had sitting on the crumb-dusted kitchen counter.
I’ll be home for dinner. Going to get Hazel out of jail.
I set it down and was about to recap the pen before I quickly jotted down another line: Love you guys so much.
After the note, I topped off the three food bowls and called over Batty, Fatty, and Patty. They purred like charged-up lawn mowers as they dug in, completely and blissfully unaware of the total chaos that currently surrounded me from every single side.
I hurried out of the apartment and went straight to my car. Morning dew made the green grass glitter, wetting my ankles as I crossed over it. There was a heavy layer of condensation all across my windshield. I wiped a large streak of it away as I got into my seat.
It didn’t take me long at all to get to the jail. The FDC building was a large, imposing, and utterly lifeless concrete tower, with tall, narrow windows across every floor, none of them able to be opened, all of them covered in a silver sheen that stopped anyone from seeing in. The entrance of the building had a circular golden seal, just above the doors, with an eagle in the center of it, reminding you of the freedom that was lost behind those concrete walls.
Inside, there were very little touches of gold. Beside a golden handrail that resembled more of a copper color, there wasn’t any color. The walls were white, the tiles were white and black, the doors were gray, the window frames were a crusty off-white.
This was where Hazel had spent the night. In this lifeless warehouse of criminals and thieves and thugs. I could already hear the distant shouting of the inmates, and I wondered which one of those shouts was directed at Hazel. She was just like me; she hated conflict. Hell, I couldn’t even get her to play games with me because she even hated fighting online.
What was going to happen if I couldn’t get her out? How could I leave her in a place like this?
After passing through the security checkpoint, I walked up to the check-in window. An overweight and pimply-faced man wearing a dark blue polo shirt sat behind the thick glass, offering me barely a smile before he asked for my ID.
“Who are you here to see?” he asked, his eyes raking over my license.
“Hazel Rose.” And then I remembered. “She’s in the system under Paul Velasquez.”
The man—his name tag said Steven—glanced up at me with brief surprise before returning to my license.
“How does that even happen? Why is she here?” I blurted out. “Why wasn’t she taken to the Women’s Detention Center?”
“If her papers say male, she’s put with the males. I can’t change that, unfortunately. It’s a system, and the system is one hell of a beast.” He looked over the rim of his brown glasses and offered me an apologetic look.
Now it was my turn to be surprised. His sudden compassion was welcome, even though the truth hurt like a physical stab.
“All right,” Steve said through the speaker in the glass, his voice slightly distorted. “If you go down that hall and take a left, you’ll see the visiting room. I was able to get you a thirty-minute visit which won’t count against her four-hour monthly total.”
“Thank you.” I gave him a weak smile. What he said barely even registered until I was halfway down the hall. If worst came to worst, and Hazel was stuck here, then she’d only get four hours to see people on the outside? That totaled a whopping two days for the entire year.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine the toll that would take.
A boulder formed in the center of my throat. I swallowed it down as I entered the visitation room.
It was a musty-smelling place, with fluorescent lights and scattered tables with rickety chairs around them. It made me think of an extremely sad cafeteria, replacing the kids with adults, half of them wearing their light blue prison jumpsuits. I looked around desperately for Hazel’s face, not seeing her.
Then I felt a hand grab me by the elbow. “Sam!”
I spun around, and Hazel fell into me. I wrapped her into the tightest hug I’d ever given. Tears flowed, uncontrolled, into her hair. She still smelled like her favorite strawberry shampoo, even though it was fading, replaced by the smell of sweat and secondhand cigarette smoke.
“All right, go sit down,” the burly officer said behind her, his voice knocking us out of our moment.
We separated. I looked into my best friend’s eyes, seeing all her pain reflected back at me. Her mascara ran down from her eyelids in dried and blotchy serpent-like rivers, smudged under her eyes where she’d rubbed, some of it darkening her hands.
“Oh, Hazel.” My voice cracked, but I knew I had to stay strong. This wasn’t the moment to break down. This was just like hitting a boss encounter. I had to buckle down and stay strong because crumbling down into a ball and crying never defeated any Lich King.
We took our seats, grabbing a table by the only window in the room, next to the constantly humming vending machines.
I wasted no time in asking, “Are you okay? Has anyone hurt you?”
Hazel shook her head, the shake ending in a tear-filled nod.
“It’s so scary, Sam. I shouldn’t be here, I didn’t do anything…” She took a breath, broken by a rogue cry. “An officer helped me out and moved me to a less crowded cell, but still, I feel the stares. I hear the terrible comments. It’s only a matter of time…” More cries. I reached across the table and grabbed her hand in mine.
“I’m getting you out, okay? I’m going straight to a bail bondsman when I leave. You’re not spending another night in here.”
“You can’t pay my bail, Sam. I wouldn’t let you even if you could.”
I shook my head, feeling a well of sorrow rise inside me. “I don’t care what I have to do, Hazel. I’m getting you out.”
She tightened her lips into a weak smile. It looked like a smile that a mother gave their delusional child. ”Yes, honey, of course you can sleep on a bed of candy.”
The door buzzed open and a guard stepped in. A couple of the visiting guests looked toward the door, most likely expecting the guard to head toward them and tell them their visiting time was up. Someone else walked in after him, a woman wearing a sharp maroon blazer over a white blouse, tucked into a tailored pair of black pants. The guard pointed in our direction. Her heels echoed off the floor as she cut across the room, winding through the tables, heading straight for us.
“Hazel?” she asked as she drew closer.
“Um, yes.” Hazel looked up at the woman with clear questions in her eyes.
“Hi, Hazel, I’m Shonda Morrison, from the Morrison and Juliet Law Firm. It’s great to meet you; unfortunately it’s under these circumstances.” Shonda put a hand out which Hazel warily shook. The name of the law firm rang a bell, but I couldn’t place where I had heard it before.
“I’m sorry, I’m a little confused.” Hazel looked from Shonda to me, her eyebrows practically knit together. “I never hired an attorney… are you like a public defender? Are you doing this for free?”
“Oh I’m getting paid.” Shonda’s glossy lips curved into a smile. “But don’t worry about the tab.”
It clicked into place just then. “You’re Shonda Morrison!” I repeated, as if she hadn’t said that already. “From TV, holy crap. You were all over the news. You helped defend that huge national case with the New York governor.”
And she also must cost a fortune. What the hell was she doing here?
“Is that true?” Hazel asked.
Shonda nodded, a short strand of brown hair falling across her forehead. “It is. Now come on, let’s get you into some nicer clothes and get you out of here.”
The confusion was reaching a maximum. “But my bail—”
“Has been paid,” Shonda said. She motioned toward the door, where a guard stood with his hands on his belt. “Let’s go.”
Hazel looked to me. “D
id you do this, Sam?”
“No…”
We stood up, the uncomfortable steel chairs screeching against the scratched floor. There were a few glances thrown our way, and the whispers were beginning to escalate into a constant buzzing. People were recognizing Shonda. She stuck out, with her expensive clothes and powerful air. Even if someone hadn’t known her from TV, they still could easily assume that Shonda Morrison was someone who you wanted on your side and not the other way around.
“Perfect,” Shonda said, turning to the guard and waving him over. “Can you please take her to collect her things and get her processed? We’ll be waiting outside.”
“Sorry, Ms. Morrison.” Hazel’s head tilted down to the floor. “I won’t be able to pay you… not as much as I’m assuming you charge. I—”
“Again, don’t worry about it. Someone’s covering your tab.”
That piqued my interest. Hazel had a good number of friends, but I didn’t know of any who could cover her bail along with the bill for one of the top attorneys in America. Judging by the look of surprise on her face, Hazel had no idea who it was either.
“Really?” she asked, the corners of her brown eyes beginning to fill with tears. “Really?”
“Yes, really.” Shonda must have seen the tears coming. She opened her arms and, surprising even the guard, pulled Hazel into a tight hug. “I’ve heard your story, and I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through over the past twenty-four hours. I promise to make sure everyone else hears your story, too. You’ve got a lot of people who care for you, Hazel. And now there’s just one more to add to the pile.”
Hazel sniffled and wiped away the tears as she nodded and repeatedly said thank you. I hadn’t realized I was crying until the tears dripped down over my top lip. I wiped my face as Hazel was taken by the guard, her head held much higher than when she initially walked into the visitors’ center.
“You’re a guardian angel,” I said to Shonda as we walked back into the stuffy, windowless hallway, a fluorescent light flickering ever directly above us.
